while on my nightly internet crawl, i stumbled on this article on LA’s pinkberry frozen yogurt obsession. as a proud “orange curtain escapee”, nothing raises my ire more quickly than the vapidity of my former homies.

as is my custom, i got all frothed up. i could instantly picture the impatient throngs of over-tanned, underfed MILFs double-parking between spinning and bikram classes for a nonfat treat. these are the same people who believe in the negative caloric effect of celery. and high colonics.

so anyway, here i am up north, feeling all superior cause i compost, and occasionally ride my bike to work. (never mind that it’s been over three weeks.) yet sadly, this morning, i had to forgo the bike once again and drive into work so as not to arrive later than 10am. (woops.)

halfway down Park Street, i questioned my habit of picking up a bagel or a croissant for breakfast along the way. declaring such a meal insufficiently nutritious for my on-again/off-again healthy-eating plan, i decided to stop in Oakland’s Chinatown for a banh mi at Cam Huong.

as usual, the streets were filled with cars, trucks and pedestrians going about their morning errands, so I couldn’t find any parking nearby. as luck would have it, however, someone had double-parked in front of the tiny storefront, so i rationalized this meant that i could double-park there too.

keeping my eye on the car while i ordered and waited for my sandwich, i began to notice traffic getting worse and worse along Webster Street. maybe the nearby closed-off streets for the farmer’s market, and that big Golden State Warriors sign i saw out in front of the convention center actually meant something.

hmm, yeah. something like “DO NOT MAKE A BAD TRAFFIC MORNING WORSE BY DOUBLE-PARKING AROUND HERE.”

eventually, a cop drove by, and i actually had the balls to assume, “nah, he won’t stop to ticket me. Oakland cops have far bigger fish to fry.” but before i knew it, the ladies in the restaurant were all a-flutter, along with several passing shoppers, everyone having noticed before i did that the cop did indeed stop to ticket me, and that i better get a hustle on, and now.

“but i haven’t paid yet! or gotten my sandwich,” i whined. i stomped out to my car, fuming, waiting for the officer to bring me my ticket, which was doubtless going to cost me plenty.

then a miracle happened. as i sat in my car, one of the ladies working the counter brought me my sandwich, and then change for the $10 bill i gave her. then the cop, a handsome, strapping young Vietnamese-American man, gave me my ticket — and literally apologized for it. he explained that area merchants had complained so much to city hall about the double-parking problem, the police had been ordered to crack down on offenders.

and the cost of the ticket? $30. that, plus the $2 for my delicious sandwich, was well worth the price of admission.

awwww. i <3 oakland. i really, really do.

and i promise not to double-park again!!!

a shopping blog, by yours truly!

odes to small things

last day of vacation… and it’s grey and cold after 6 straight days of lovely sun. oh well!

we rented bikes and are thoroughly enjoying our increased range of travel around this thoroughly lovely city. today, we’d planned to go to the botanical gardens and the zoo, but not sure if that’s so practical now, with rain so likely.

last night, we went to a great-looking place in the Jordaan called “restaurant tante agaath” - but the service was deplorable. a party of four blowhards (two tiresome Cockney businessmen and their dull Dutch hosts) sat right next to us, getting louder and louder with each drink and cigarette.

even worse, our entrees took literally an hour to arrive (and we hadn’t ordered appetizers in order to save room for dessert!) needless to say, we didn’t stick around for that, and just got some pastries at a stall closer to the center of town.

we ended the night at “rokerij” coffeshop, probably my favorite establishment of this entire trip so far. great interior design, dark and tribal, comfy wall benches, cool music.

piccies so far are up on flickr.

I am a lousy blogger. I get so humbled by “the greats” - Crazy Aunt Purl, Dooce, Sundry, Kiki, etc that it just makes me clam up.

Also sad but true is the fact that after 6 weeks of doing really well on my nutrition plan, i started fucking up on it, leading to a snowball effect of disappointing proportions. fortunately, my acupuncturist was marvelously positive and encouraging. i was able to be 100% up front with her as a result.

So sigh. I got lots done yesterday on my own as J was at work til 9pm. I managed to run a good 75% of my pre-trip errands: getting travel-sized odds and ends, preparing the pets for our absence… I don’t mean preparing them verbally - hehe - but rather, making sure they had enough food, getting a new cage for Winkle the hamster, now that her babies are weaned (yeah - she had 2 babies about 3 weeks ago!! eep!).

I also finally came up with a plan for segrating the cats and the hamsters that doesn’t involve putting the cages on high shelves. While that works for me & J on an everyday basis, reaching up that high is just not safe for my mom. So I decided to keep the hammies in the living room, closing the pocket doors and blocking the other door with the heavy wooden screen. I just hope Sweet Boy doesn’t miss his perch too much! He’s got plenty of others…

I’ve also been fairly productive already today. I’ve taken a bold step and decided to touch up my highlights at home. Wish me luck

Later today, I’ve got a wedding to go to — some friends of J’s — and I have to go by myself because he has to work again today. BOO. But instead of feeling glum about it, I decided to make myself look as gorgeous as possible, and have as good a time as possible. It’s all about attitude and approach!! I say this because I’ve just realized that I actually wouldn’t have had a *better* time if I’d gone with J — it’s been ages since we’ve gone to a party and really enjoyed ourselves. I find that I’m actually more outgoing and friendly when I’m by myself (cause I have to be).

Interesting. More later - cause now I have to rinse.

i’ve been going to a great acupuncturist, and she’s inspired me to cut down on some unhealthy habits (smoking & overeating) and to take on some healthy new ones (more vegies & water). i am feeling a lot better already after 6 days of said improvements. my energy is still low, and i’m finally getting over my third cold of the winter, and a spot on my chin is taking a loooonnnnng time to heal - but all in all, doing better.

i’m also cheered by the fact i somehow lost 10 lbs since the last time i weighed myself (who knows, maybe 5 months ago…) now i just gotta convince j to hand over the new wii, play me some sports, and the rest of the weight will come melting off, i tellya…

in all seriousness though, i did put in about 40 minutes of gardening today and i think that was good for both my ass and the backyard.

oh yeah, one other thing: i get to choose the blog platform we’ll be using for work. suggestions anyone?

at least when it comes to movies, i spose.

this is why:

i really liked Talladega Nights. when i admitted this to kiki a couple weeks ago, she patted my hand, shook her head and said, “oh honey…”

but, but, but — it was funny!

worse, I just got out of Smokin’ Aces, and while the ending was sooooo never-gonna-happen kind of ridiculous, i STILL liked it. sure, it’s a total Tarantino rip-off, but all the performances were really good. i really like seeing actors doing something wildly different than what they’re known for doing.

my faves were Jason Bateman (his role, alone, validated the ticket price for me), Common, and Alicia Keys. i hope her acting career flourishes.

I woke up to find my house TP’d and my two prize Japanese goldfish dead.

FUNFUNFUNFUN

i got two russian dwarf hamsters yesterday and have been enjoying their company very much ever since.

their names are Winkle and Abalone, and they are black and grey, respectively. Winkle is a cute little boy who loves to run on his wheel and is quite tame. Abalone is a really pretty pearly color, bigger, a female, and neither tame nor very nice to her cagemate.

of course the cats are very interested in the new arrivals!

i wrote this email to J today in response to his report from the blurb Tahoe Cabin..

Hi lovey,

Thank you for your note and letting me know how your day went so I don’t worry about you too much.

I had a nice and pretty uneventful day, consisting of a drive through Alameda looking at pretty houses with my mother, followed by coffee at Starbucks, then an hour or two of Viva Pinata (which is cute but the tutorial portion interrupts you too much to explain things whether you want them explained or not), topped off with a nice long nap. This was interspersed with looking at the lil guys and feeding them bits and pieces of things the internets say they might like. The food items they’ve enjoyed most so far are little nibbles off my organic brown rice snax, with whole raw pumpkin seeds coming in at a close second.

The kitties had a brief-ish Outdoor Adventure, while I watered the backyard. They aren’t as obsessive about the lil guys today, it seems.

I need to go to the pet store now for a better wheel. Oh, and the little grey girl hamster, Abalone, was the active one in the middle of the night and for part of the morning, while little black-with-white-paws-and-tummy Winkle has been very quiet so far today in comparison. So it looks like they are turn-takers when it comes to bouts of frenzied-but-delicate activity.

Love you honey bunny boo,
M

…if WordPress allowed me to post my Yelp Widget.

But maybe the name of the widget (”blog bling”) is just too idiotic.

Oh well. I thought it might be fun to keep a log of all the restaurants I’ve eaten at in Alameda, so here are my reviews thus far.

balancing while eating, originally uploaded by RiseyP.

but at least it didn’t bite.

xmas was fairly relaxing and nice this year. spent 6 hours at Kaiser ER the day before, so got that out of the way. j’s hurty tummy was getting worse, so we decided to try & get to the bottom of it. unfortunately the docs had no clue… but at least there’s nothing sharp and operable in there. we celebrated by dining at Tsuru Kushi in Japan Town.

so by the time monday rolled around, we were a bit more rested and relieved. i’d done most of the box-clearing before heading to the ER, so cooking was my my task for xmas day.

i made stuffing with sage sausage, leeks, onions, celery, mushrooms, and bread, of course i also did a winter vegetable au gratin: sweet potatoes, fingerlings, acorn squash with herbes de provence and some kind of yummy cheese that w & c gave me the other nite. since safeway had run out of cranberries the day before, i was reduced to preparing a can of cranberry sauce, adding slices apples and clementines, ground cloves and cinnamon. still tasted pretty good. i popped some pillsbury crescent rolls in the oven for good measure.

can you say carb-attack? mmmm!

mom, dad and john came over at about 5ish and brought the turkey, green beans w/bacon, carrots and a vintage “applesauce bread” (recipe from john’s great-grandmother). everything tasted yummy and we enjoyed razzing each other soundly.

then we opened prezzies. we weren’t supposed to buy each other anything this year but jason totally ignored that rule. i was also somewhat naughty as well by giving everyone 2-3 DVDs. woops.